Publications

2023
Working Paper

The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through

By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. Whillans

Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In... View Details

Keywords: Friction; Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Outcome or Result

09 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 9

Working PapersThe Architecture of Complex Systems: Do Core-Periphery Structures Dominate? Authors:Alan MacCormack, Carliss Baldwin, and John Rusnak Abstract Any complex technological system can be decomposed into a number of subsystems and associated components, some... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

31 Aug 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Innovation through Global Collaboration: A New Source of Competitive Advantage

Keywords: by Alan MacCormack, Theodore Forbath, Peter Brooks & Patrick Kalaher

Research Summary

War & Peace

By: Deepak Malhotra

A second stream of research looks at issues related to conflict resolution in the context of international and ethno-political conflict, and in particular, at the role of negotiation in ending armed conflicts. I launched a new course at HBS entitled "War & Peace:... View Details

March–April 2017
Article

Sink or Swim: The Role of Workplace Context in Shaping Career Advancement and Human-Capital Development

By: Shinjinee Chattopadhyay and Prithwiraj Choudhury

We develop and test predictions on how early-career challenges arising from the workplace context affect short- and long-term career advancement of individuals. Typically an organization’s decision to deploy a manager to one of several possible contexts is endogenous... View Details

Keywords: Workplace Context; Career Advancement; Context; Situation or Environment; Human Capital; Personal Development and Career; Performance

2012
Working Paper

'Power from Sunshine': A Business History of Solar Energy

By: Geoffrey Jones and Loubna Bouamane

This working paper provides a longitudinal perspective on the business history of solar energy between the nineteenth century and the present day. It covers early attempts to develop solar energy, the use of passive solar in architecture before World War 2, and the... View Details

Keywords: Renewable Energy; Business History; Policy; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Business Model; Energy Industry

February 2009 (Revised March 2009)
Case

AFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A)

By: Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber

Union seeks to protect its pension funds through shareholder activism focused on corporate governance and executive compensation. The case uses Countrywide Financial as an example. Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the largest... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Mortgages; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

23 Feb 2011
First Look

First Look: Feb. 23

development. First, structural conditions first postulated by Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) as generating long-term inequality are shown here empirically to be exogenous determinants of political instability. Second, that exogenously... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Nov 2021
Book

What It Takes to Build an Organizational Culture That Wins

another. It is a culture geared to the long-term success of an increasingly rapidly changing panoply of strategies in an accelerating competitive environment based on a stream of new ideas and constant change. At no time has the... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

18 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas, April 18

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52520 Interest Rate Conundrums in the Twenty-First Century By: Hanson, Samuel G., David O. Lucca, and Jonathan H. Wright Abstract—A large literature argues that long-term interest rates... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Is Government Just Stupid? How Bad Decisions Are Made

different American cities. The winner typically pays more than the team is worth, and the losers often end up with empty stadiums. By focusing on keeping their teams with little or no regard for the long-term costs, taxpayers have spent... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman, Jonathan Baron & Katherine Shonk

24 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 24, 2017

January 2017 Review of Financial Studies Being Surprised by the Unsurprising: Earnings Seasonality and Stock Returns By: Chang, Tom Y., Samuel M. Hartzmark, David H. Solomon, and Eugene F. Soltes Abstract—We present evidence consistent with markets failing to properly... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Innovation and Productivity

In this stream of research, Professor Steinwender examines how firms adjust their innovative behavior and productivity in response to changes in the external environment. Analyzing Spanish firm-level data, she finds that two mechanisms proposed in the economic... View Details

Research Summary

Modernization Regimes

Professor Fabbe is currently conducting fieldwork for a book project that focuses on how societies respond to crisis and how states seek to use modernization initiatives to strengthen social resilience and cohesion. Towards this end, she is researching local... View Details

September 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Epic: The Future of Health Information Technology

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Brian L. Walker

How should the founder and leadership team of a health IT company with more than 45 years of market leadership prepare for the future, while navigating founder transitions and industry changes? Founded by Judy Faulkner in the late 1970s, Epic pioneered electronic... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Private Ownership; Customer Focus and Relationships; Information Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Health Industry; Electronics Industry; Information Technology Industry

Educators

Purchase

March 2018
Article

In Pursuit of Enhanced Customer Retention Management: Review, Key Issues, and Future Directions

By: Eva Ascarza, Scott A. Neslin, Oded Netzer, Zachery Anderson, Peter S. Fader, Sunil Gupta, Bruce Hardie, Aurelie Lemmens, Barak Libai, David T. Neal, Foster Provost and Rom Schrift

In today’s turbulent business environment, customer retention presents a significant challenge for many service companies. Academics have generated a large body of research that addresses part of that challenge—with a particular focus on predicting customer churn.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Retention; Churn; Customer Relationship Management; Measurement and Metrics

2016
Working Paper

Diversified Business Groups in the West: History and Theory

By: Asli M. Colpan and Takashi Hikino

This working paper examines the historical origins, evolutionary paths, and long-term resilience of diversified business groups in contemporary developed economies of Western Europe, North America, and Oceania. It aims to come up with a new theoretical understanding of... View Details

Keywords: History; Diversification; Business Divisions; Theory; Oceania; North America; Europe

SSRN

17 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Competition in Modular Clusters

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin & C. Jason Woodard; Consulting; Communications; Telecommunications; Pharmaceutical

August 2021
Article

Information Seeding and Knowledge Production in Online Communities: Evidence from OpenStreetMap

By: Abhishek Nagaraj

The wild success of a few online communities (like Wikipedia) has obscured the fact that most attempts at forming such communities fail. This study evaluates information seeding, an early-stage intervention to bootstrap online communities that enables contributors to... View Details

Keywords: Online Communities; Knowledge Production; Crowdsourcing; Innovation; Digitization; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Social and Collaborative Networks; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Dissemination